"And we shall have none," said Chiun flatly.
"How're we gonna win a war without an air force?" Hornworks exploded.
"By superior strategy. First, you will reorganize your legions."
"I already got them redeployed according to that dang turtle shell."
"It is a tortoiseshell, and your enemy already knows how you are to fight this war," Chiun corrected.
"Yeah. By massive air strikes."
"Exactly why you will not do this."
"We can't get into a bloody ground slog!"
"You will not. First, you must select sixty of your bravest centurions-"
"Centurions? Is that kinda like a captain?"
"Possibly," Chiun said vaguely. "Each centurion will command a century of one hundred infantry. Six centuries will comprise a cohort."
"Companies and battalions," said General Hornworks, beginning to write this down. Since he no longer had his telex, he used his sleeve. "Yeah, yeah. My military history is coming back to me now. A division is what-a legion? We already got a sackful of legionnaires-all French."
"Then your horsemen."
Hornworks looked up from his sleeve. "We don't have any durn horsemen."
"What do you call the iron turtles with the long noses?"
"Tanks. Oh, you mean tank cavalry?"
"Yes. The equities. You will prepare them to enter the land now called Kuran."
"We send in the tanks without air cover and we're sunk," Hornworks snorted.
"There will be no air cover," pronounced the Master of Sinanju.
Pain on his face, General Hornworks looked to the others for support.
"There will be no air cover," said Sheik Fareem.
"There will be no air cover," added Prince General Bazzaz.
"Whose side are you on, anyway?" Hornworks growled.
"The winning side," Bazzaz told him.
Hornworks winced. "What about naval support? Navy gunnery is the finest in the world-much as I'm loath to admit it as a career army officer."
Chiun fingered his beard. "The Romans had no navy. Navies are Greek." He shook his bald head. "No, we will have no navy. You may send the ships away. The Mesopotamians once fought the Greeks, and would be prepared for such obvious tactics. They never fought the Romans. The advantage would be ours."
"Advantage? You're setting us up for the greatest defeat in the history of warfare!"
"Only if you fail to carry out the instructions of the imperator."
"What's an imperator?"
"I am."
"Is that kinda like a general?" Hornworks wondered.
"It is absolutely like a general," Chiun told him.
"Figures," Hornworks said morosely.
"What am I?" asked Prince General Bazzaz with a straight face.
"You are now prince imperator," Chiun told him.
"Prince Imperator Bazzaz." The prince turned to the sheik. "Does that not sound wonderful, Father?"
The old sheik beamed. "I am proud of you, my son."
"Since navies are Greek and everyone knows the Greeks are unrepentant pork-eaters," Bazzaz said firmly, "I withdraw my request for a personal aircraft carrier."
"Done. What would you have in its place?"
"My very own legion," Bazzaz said quickly.
"Since this request befits a prince imperator, I will agree to this," Sheik Fareem said, clapping his hands once.
"I hate to break into this touching family scene," said General Hornworks, "but I'd like to point out that what we're discussing here is sending all our forward units into the biggest breastworks of entrenched positions and high-density troop concentrations since World War One."
"Yes," said Chiun. "That is what we're talking about here."
"These front-line units, they're mostly kids and old men," Hornworks added. "They're keeping their elite Renaissance Guard in the rear."
The Master of Sinanju nodded. "That is my understanding. "
"Our people will be chopped up before we even get to the elite uni . . . centuries. Assuming we get that far. Once they realize we're not gonna use air and sea power, they're gonna hit us with their missiles. If they don't get the drop on us while we're all sitting on our duffs brushing up on our Latin."
"They will use their missiles first," Chiun decided. "It will be up to our socii to deal with those. Our allies."
"How? Sneak a British SAS team into Irait? We start blowing them up with twenty-twos, and they'll just launch the rest of them."
"We will not do it that way."
"Yeah, how we gonna do it? By magic?"
"That is why I have summoned you here, Praetor Hornworks," Chiun said. "I must have a method of rendering these devices harmless. It must be a silent method. It cannot be complicated because the socii I envision to undertake this action are not trained to work with complicated tools. Stealth will be their chief virtue."
"Stealth!" cried Praetor Hornworks. "Now you're talking! The Fifty-seventh Tactical Air Wing is standing ready to carpet-bomb the bejesus out of those heathens-in a manner of speaking."
"Send them home," said Chiun indignantly. "We will drop no booms, fire no cannon, and destroy no carpets. These primitive methods are not the way of Imperator Chiun. We will defeat the enemy with our brains."
"Let me get this straight-you want a way that will knock out those missile launchers so that no one will know they're knocked out?" Hornworks asked in a dubious tone.
"Yes."
"But that's impossible."
"Nonsense," said the sheik. "You are an American. Americans are very ingenious. The world knows this."
Prince Imperator Bazzaz nodded eagerly. "Yes, everyone knows Americans are ingenious. Your movies are beyond compare. You create the most wonderful toys, like aircraft carriers. Surely you have a big wondrous toy to make this happen?"
Praetor Winfield Scott Hornworks' eyes traveled from face to face around the war room.
"Why do I get the feeling I'm just a spear-carrier in this comic opera?" he grumbled.
"Because you are," said the Master of Sinanju simply.
Chapter 18
President Maddas Hinsein paused to light up a Cuban cigar with a cylindrical pipe lighter that emitted a blue flame almost a foot long. He took his time, rolling the clipped tip of the cigar in the flame, watching it darken and shrivel. Presently it caught like a slow coal. He collapsed the lighter, cutting off the high blue flame. The lighter went into a pocket and the cigar went into his mouth. He puffed thoughtfully while, beyond the window which, of those in the council room, only he faced squarely, the noxious yellow cloud of Sarin nerve gas rolled inexorably toward the Palace of Sorrows. The nervous antiaircraft fire had died down to an occasional colorful sputter.
Those sitting on either side of the long open meeting table were very aware of that window. Their eyes careened toward it often, only to be drawn inexorably back toward the too-calm figure of their leader.
Once the cigar was really going, Maddas Hinsein drew in a double lungful of aromatic tobacco smoke. His barrel chest swelled. He held the smoke deep within him.
Then, in a steady insolent stream, he released the smoke. It rolled down the long table, a bluish-gray harbinger of the death that would soon be theirs.
Everyone held his breath. To inhale the expensive tobacco smoke that had emerged from the Precious One's lungs was a transgression punishable by hanging.
"Go ahead," prompted Maddas Hinsein, "inhale. I do not mind. It is good smoke. And you have earned it, loyal ones."
Obediently the Revolting Command Council leaned into the rolling smoke, inhaling greedily. They recoiled, coughing and hacking. The stuff was wretched-worse than the nerve gas could ever be. Or so they imagined.
"The Arab who can inhale this heady smoke and not cough is the man who may succeed me one day," Maddas Hinsein said with a careless gesture. "When I am prepared to ascend into Paradise," he added.